Congratulations on your new bike, Ian. I still have a couple of bikes with Shimano hub gears and they're smooth and silent, very agreeable, as has been well said above. Also the Shimano dynohub, which in my opinion is far better allrounder than the SON, which for three times the prices effectively at most speeds gives you less light on the road.
However, I've found that the weak point of the previous Nexus Premium setup (possibly fixed in the Alfine) is that the cog wears pretty fast, so if you're touring in distant places, take a spare or spares and appropriate tools. Mine were gone at about 2000m inside enclosed chain cases... I hope SJS fitted the bike with one of their own cranksets and chainring, because you don't want the Nexus-level one-unit crankset either -- it's soft, very fast wearing, gone at about the same 2000m even inside a chain case; I was not impressed. I concluded that Nexus falls a long way below Deore on the Shimano quality scale. There is also an Alfine crankset which may have a better chainring, as I see it fitted to quite a few expensive European bikes.
Andre Jute
